High Contrast Photography Lesson

Submitted by: Cathy NimickUNIT: PhotographyGrade Level: High School

NOTE: For the most part, developing film and burning photo images on paper is no longer done due to the era of digital cameras. However, you can still buy film developing supplies, and you can do effects that you can't do digitally.

Pushing Film for High Contrast Results

Objective

To increase awareness of patterns of light and composition.

Your subject matter should be in very contrast lighting and in low light situations. Try turning out all the lights in a room with no windows and set up one very strong light (a 200 watt bulb works well). You don’t need expensive lights for this. A black or white cloth as a backdrop works well for this. Students bring black and white clothing, hats and props. They take turns modeling. Student photographers are encouraged to ‘squint’ at the model and choose and crop a pleasing pattern of light. Another option for this are night shots.

OVERDEVELOPMENT

Your assignment is to push an entire roll of Tri-X ISO Film (35 mm) and over-develop accordingly.

Note- You must raise your film speed in multiples of 2. Overdeveloping you film will trick your camera into thinking it has faster film. There are, however, disadvantages to this. This is good for low light situations as it will give you the option of using faster shutter speeds or getting more depth of field. You must , however, change it at the BEGINNING of the roll, and overdevelop the ENTIRE roll. This is the same as underexposing and overdeveloping.

The disadvantages (or advantages) to this process are:

loss of shadow detail
increased contrast
increased grain

The over-development is generally done in percentages. Our developing chart is for Sprint Standard Developer (which is similar to D 76). Sprint recommends overdeveloping quite a bit more than other developers.

Other developers may vary a little bit, but here are some general rules: